I agree. We aren't talking about achievements as a steam addon here, but as a solid and tangible part of the game.

I think many people feel like achievements are an afterthought because 'every game has them'. This is especially true thanks to platforms like the consoles, OIS's Gamecenter and Steam which make adding arbitrary stat tracking easy through a standard interface. There's a reason that most achievements are basic and lazy; because they are so easy to implement, they are often an afterthought. Think of the amount of games with achievements like 'play for ten hours'.

Then again, there are heaps of games that use acheivemnts well to point out unknown strategies to players and force them to explore the game more than they otherwise would.

They really should be a metagame with actual incentive to pursue them. Either do them properly or not at all.

The taxidermist revamp is a chance to implement achievements in a way that is relevant and engaging, as well as helping to fill out a component of the game that has been ignored for pretty much the entire development period.

I'd hate to see it glossed over because of limited development time, but if that's the case then so be it.

As for the Taxidermist... there's really no reason to visit the building more than once in a blue moon, even when it's actually providing you with useful info. In the end-game it's just pointless altogether.

Some simple things I could think of to fix that would be to bring back variable trophy values in the end-game, to give some incentive to check the building and add some more potential "burst" gold sources.

Also, adding a counter for how many of each trophy has been found would make it a more interesting thing to look at.

@Bloggorus: YES! Yes to all of that. I'm sick of dumb play for X hours or beat world one achievements. Achievements should be used as a learning tool and incentive to try interesting and new things, not just point out that you've beaten X dungeon.

@FDru: You could replace the burning dungeon thing and make it more flexible by making one trophy worth 750 instead of the dungeon.

If you're looking at the taxidermist, it's difficult or impossible to know what dungeon you should visit to get the trophy you're looking for.

If you're in the dungeon with the choice of two trophies to take out, who would ever have possibly remembered which one happens to be worth more right now? I was focused on whether my potions would be enough to take out the boss, not whether the zombie brain is worth 175 or 200.

The Avatar wrote:@FDru: You could replace the burning dungeon thing and make it more flexible by making one trophy worth 750 instead of the dungeon.

I was thinking about something like that, but wasn't sure if there was already some specific reason for burning dungeon selection. Having more choices is also cooler, I think (PQI, burning dungeon or trophy hunt, etc).

I also suggested somewhere else to let us bring all trophies out of the dungeon (for progression purposes only) and have the taxidermist pay for the most valuable one (for gold reward), and I guess those ideas clashed.

I've found that the games which do the best balance of achievements (at least the ones which work in my favour) are the ones which grant a small handful during natural game progress -- including, perhaps, one or two "obvious" ones to encourage less dedicated players -- and a much broader range that basically can't be accidentally unlocked.

Unless, of course, you have one of those awesome moments in the game where something spectacular emerges from your actions and are thrilled to find an achievement pinging for you anyway.

While we're talking achevements, I've been wondering when and if we'll get racial completion for regular dungeons. If there was a way to cycle between badges and classes in the adventuring screen (which is probably being worked on), I hope there is a third pannel, racial, implemented to incentivise people to try different races and smooth out the incoming PQI a bit. If that pannel also had numbers of how many "race X" you took in there it would also be interesting because you'd be able to see if you are leaning too heavily on a race and get more psych reasaons to try others out (or so I believe).

Lujo wrote:While we're talking achevements, I've been wondering when and if we'll get racial completion for regular dungeons. If there was a way to cycle between badges and classes in the adventuring screen (which is probably being worked on), I hope there is a third pannel, racial, implemented to incentivise people to try different races and smooth out the incoming PQI a bit. If that pannel also had numbers of how many "race X" you took in there it would also be interesting because you'd be able to see if you are leaning too heavily on a race and get more psych reasaons to try others out (or so I believe).

I don't think that Racial completion ends up being meaningful, due to the Hoarder badge. Barring a few fringe cases, if you can beat the dungeon with Hoarder then you can beat the dungeon with any race.

Ah, but that's not why I ask - PQI counts races, and there's no way to tell what races have you taken to different places or how often you picked them or what. I wouldn't mind being able to tell these things. Plus, it'd give people reasons to pick a race they otherwise wouldn't if going for these, but since it wouldn't be tied to quests per se you could get a chance to try out goblins and dwarves without also having your class and badge determined for you...